Satan has certainly been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years. The false doctrine of Hell and the Devil has allowed the Protestant and Catholic Churches to flourish far too long. Without a Devil to point their fingers at, religionists of the right hand path would have nothing with which to threaten their followers. "Satan leads you to temptation," ; "Satan is the prince of evil,"; "Satan is vicious, cruel, brutal," they warn. "If you give in to the temptations of the Devil, you will surely suffer eternal damnation and roast in Hell."

The semantic meaning of Satan is the "adversary" or "opposition" or the "accuser." The very word "devil" comes from the Indian devil which means "god". Satan represents opposition to all religions which serve to frustrate and condemn man for his natural instincts. He has been given an evil role simply because he represents the carnal, the earthly, and mundane aspects of life.

Satan, the chief devil of the Western World, was originally an angel whose duty was to report human deficiencies to God. It was not until the Fourteenth Century that he began to be depicted as an evil deity who was part man and part animal, with goat-like horns and hooves. Before Christianity gave him the names of Satan, Lucifer, etc., the carnal side of mans nature was governed by the god which was then called Dionysis, or Pan, depicted as a satyr or faun, by the Greeks. Pan was originally the "good guy," and symbolized fertility and fecundity.

Whenever a nation comes under a new form of government, the heroes of the past become the villains of the present. So it is with religion. The earliest Christians believed that the pagan deities were devils, and to employ them was to use"black magic." Miraculous heavenly events they termed "white magic"; this was the soul distinction between the two. The old gods did not die, they fell into Hell and became devils. The bogey, goblin, or bugaboo used to frighten children is derived from the Slovonic "Bog" which means "god,"as does Bhaga in Hindu.

Many pleasures revered before the advent of Christianity were condemned by the new religion. It required little changeover to transform the horns and cloven hooves of Pan into a most convincing devil! Pan's attributes could be neatly changed into charged-with-punishment sins, and so the metamorphosis was complete.

The association of the goat with the devil is found in the Christian Bible, where the holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement, was celebrated by casting lots for two goats "without blemish," one to be offered to the Lord, and one to Azazel. The goat carring the sins of the people was driven into the desert and became the "scapegoat." This is the origin of the goat which is still used in lodge ceremonies today as it was also used in Egypt , where once a year it is sacrificed to a God.

Supposedly, demons are malevolent spirits with attributes conductive to the deterioration of the people or events that they touch upon. The Greek of these harbingers of inspiration -- all wicked. The word demon meant a guardian spirit or source of inspiration, and to be sure, later theologians invented legion upon legion of these harbingers of inspiration -- all wicked.

An indication of the cowardice of "magicians" of the right-hand path is the practice of calling upon a particular demon (who would supposedly be a minion of the devil) to do his bidding. The assumption is that the demon, being only a flunky of the devil, is easier to control. Occult lore states that only the most formidably "protected" or insanely fool-hearted sorcerer would try to call forth the Devil himself.

The Satanist does not furtively call upon these "lesser" devils, but brazenly involkes those of that infernal army of long-standing outrage -- the Devils themselves.

Theologians have cataloged some of the names of devils in their lists of demons, as might be expected, but the roster contains the names of the most effectively used in Satanic ritual. These are the names and origins of the Gods and Goddesses called upon, which make up a large part of the occupancy of the Royal Palace of Hell:

© 1999 C.Stokes. All rights reserved.